by Linda Barnes
“Perhaps. Of course, Dora did make pâté to go with it—”
“Done,” Spraggue said. “Bring on the wine.”
Mary nodded in Pierce’s direction and he stopped shuffling cards and retreated silently, closing the double doors behind him.
“Now,” Mary said with a smile of quiet satisfaction, “I wish to speak to you about real estate.”
“That is not the way to keep me awake and alert.”
“Both your father and your grandfather found the subject endlessly fascinating.”
“I must have been a changeling.”
“Nonsense. Look in the mirror and then look at the portrait of your grandfather in the foyer. You’re exactly—”
“Only on the outside,” Spraggue said.
“It’s a good thing for you that I find matters of finance fascinating.”
“No argument. Why don’t I give you power of attorney and then I won’t have to listen?”
“Michael,” Mary said firmly, “while I am planning to live forever, as you know, they tell me money can’t buy that, and some day you may have to figure this mess out on your own.”
“I’m listening,” Spraggue said in what he hoped was a suitably chastened tone of voice. He swallowed another yawn and was sure Mary saw him do it.
“Besides,” she said, “this may intrigue you. It smacks of illegality.”
The doors eased noiselessly open, ushering in Pierce bearing a laden silver tray. A crusty loaf of French bread steamed in a wicker basket lined with white cloth. A cut crystal decanter bounced colored prisms of light off two wineglasses and a blue ceramic bowl. The butler placed the tray on the coffee table, and, dismissed by some imperceptible sign from his employer, left them to fend for themselves.
“For some time,” Mary said, between sips of wine, “I have been interested in purchasing a building on Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay. 312 is the address. It’s located next door to two buildings already owned by the Spraggue Foundation. With the third building secured, the entire trio could be modernized, improved—”
“We’re not talking condo conversion here, are we?”
“You vetoed that last year. Still the building is attractive.”
“If you think it’s a good deal, go ahead and—”
“No, Michael. It’s complicated. The price of that building is being arbitrarily raised.”
“How do you arbitrarily raise the price of a building? A building is worth whatever somebody pays for it.”
“Ah. You do learn what I teach you. In this case, the property is being passed back and forth among a series of “straw” owners. No money is actually changing hands, but the figures on deeds are skyrocketing.”
“So somebody found out that you’re after the property,” Spraggue said. “You’ve got a leak in the organization.”
“I think the assumption of a gossipy employee is invalidated by the fire.”
“The fire?”
“Just a small blaze in the basement of this overpriced edifice. One of our tenants, a dear man in the garden flat, noticed an odd smell and called the fire department before anything drastic occurred. I wouldn’t have even known about it if the superintendent of our building hadn’t mentioned it.”
“So?”
“So now I’m worried that they are not kicking up the price in order to get money out of me. I’m worried that their target may be some insurance company, that they may be planning to burn the building down. I have called the police and the fire department, and both have treated me like a dotty old lady.”
“A mistake.”
“I have phoned the Registry of Deeds, the Tax Assessor, the Insurance Commissioner. And I have come up against a brick wall; I am utterly stymied. I know no more about this property than I did on the day I first viewed it. I can find no trace of the principal owners; they are not in the phone book nor do they drive cars licensed in Massachusetts—”
“A lot of honest folk prefer to register their cars someplace with less extortionate insurance rates.”
“And one of the so-called owners is a firm, a holding company, whose lawyer will not respond to my lawyer’s questions.”
“Undoubtedly what they pay him for,” Spraggue said.
“Would it interest you if I said there was a very good chance that the fire was caused by someone spilling a pool of lighter fluid directly underneath a radiator?”
Spraggue swallowed a bite of bread and pâté, took a long drink. “Mary,” he said, “listen to me. I’m a working actor. I do a minimum of five shows a week, sometimes eight. I play five different roles. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get me back into investigation work. You never give up, do you?”
“Seldom.”
“I know you preferred my former career.”
“Call me a busybody old lady. I deserve it. The arson squad intimated as much. But I would like you to bring the situation to the attention of some of your police department cronies; I thought maybe that nice Captain Hurley …”
“I’ll ask him,” Spraggue said. “But that’s it. That’s all.”
“Do you like the pâté, dear?”
“Does that mean business is over?”
“Compliment Dora if you do like the pâté. She’s been threatening to leave again. Go somewhere more exciting, somewhere with young people who entertain. Open a restaurant.”
“She’s been threatening to leave ever since I can remember.”
“She’d love to have you move back in. You were always a challenge to her—”
“Forget it.”
“If she quits, it will be on your head.”
“There’s enough on my head. I have a performance tomorrow and you neglected to pass on to me your secret gift of needing next to no sleep.”
“It’s no gift, believe me.”
“Thanks for the food, and when you write Kate, tell her the wine made me think of her in positively indecent ways.”
“The tower room awaits you. It’s all made up.”
“No,” Spraggue said. “Thank you, but no. I have a room in a house that belongs to me, bought with money I earned. It ain’t the tower room, but it’s mine.” He’d almost made it back to the car when she leaned out the door and called his name.
What now? he thought.
She hurried down the stairs, leaving the door ajar. “I forgot to tell you about the phone call,” she said breathlessly. “It’s not important, I suppose. Just odd. I don’t even know who it was that called; and yet I can’t rid myself of the feeling that I ought to know his voice.”
“Whoa,” Spraggue said. “One of us seems to be rambling.”
“Nonsense. A man called a little after five this afternoon. He did not ask to speak to you. He asked about you. Specifically, he asked, and I quote, if you ‘were on a case.’ I hesitated, asked him again whom he wished to inquire about. There could very well be, and probably is, a Doctor Sprague in the vicinity. I thought the man might be attempting to reach a doctor. But he merely repeated his request and when I didn’t answer immediately, he hung up.”
“But you thought you recognized the voice?”
“One of those feelings … Yes … I’m sure I’ve heard it before.”
“Do you remember a friend of mine named Pete Collatos? A cop?”
“With an unmistakable Boston accent? It was not he.”
“What about Brian Donagher then?”
“Senator Donagher? He was shot at today, right at the reservoir, if you can imagine such—”
“Did it sound like him?”
“No. Not at all. Why? What’s going on? You’re not—”
“I am not investigating the Donagher shooting, Aunt Mary. Remember? You want me to call the senator and tell him you’re available?”
“Do not tease a harmless old woman.”
“Hah,” Spraggue said, closing himself into the shell of the Porsche. “I’d be doing the guy a favor.”
SIX
Anyone who goes to bed
at five in the morning ought to have the sense to take the phone off the hook. That was Spraggue’s first coherent thought after the harsh jangling jarred him into a sitting position. He swore as he staggered across the room to the table on which the offending instrument shrilled. Kathleen, he thought, and his mood improved markedly.
He grabbed the receiver, said “Hang on,” then carried the phone back to the bed and sat, Indian fashion, lifting his feet off the cold wooden floor. He wrapped the comforter snugly around his body.
When he finally said “Hello,” all irritation was gone from his voice.
Instead of returning his salutation, the distinctly male voice on the other end of the line said sarcastically, “So you’re out of the business, huh?”
“Pete?”
“Why the hell were you creeping around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir at three in the goddamn morning?”
“What time is it now, Pete?” Spraggue said flatly.
“Eleven. I waited until I thought you’d be up.”
“Very considerate.”
“You just want to work the case alone, is that it? No partners?”
“Pete, does this have anything to do with a big dark Buick, license plate 365-890? Because I’m planning to call Hurley to get the plate traced.”
“No need to bother, Spraggue.”
“I’d have to have a better reason to ignore that car than your say-so.”
“Well, that’s why I’m calling, to invite you over for a chat about the reservoir and the poison-pen letters Donagher’s been getting.”
“Pete, I meant it when I said I wasn’t working the case.”
“Dammit, Spraggue, Donagher almost got killed!”
“And I’m sure that the Boston Police have a ring around him so tight he’ll have to get a note from Mom to go to the bathroom.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Collatos said bitterly. “He’s an independent cuss; won’t put up with any of that. Wants to go out and mingle with the people. Doesn’t want the electorate to think he’s running scared. When the cops suggested he give the marathon a miss, he blew sky-high. Look, the house is in Brighton, one of those big Victorian jobs on Sparhawk Street—”
“Not interested, Pete.”
“Well, I’ll bet a certain Captain Menlo would be interested in the fact that your car was parked out by the reservoir at three in the morning.”
“Which reminds me, did you happen to mention my name to the dear man yesterday?”
“I wouldn’t tell him if his hair was on fire.”
“But you’d use him to blackmail me into coming over.”
“That’s a nasty word, Spraggue. I’m trying to help you out. Get you interesting work, answer some questions for you before you go shooting your mouth off to the cops about some car parked at the reservoir that’s got no bearing on—”
“Look, Pete.” Spraggue knew that if he didn’t interrupt, Collatos would go on forever. “I’ll come for fifteen minutes, but that’s it.”
“I want your opinion of those letters and—”
“And you’ll tell me who belongs to the dark Buick.”
“55 Sparhawk Street,” Collatos said.
The phone clicked.
SEVEN
Spraggue considered alternatives—two of which, ripping the phone’s umbilical cord out of the wall and diving back under the down comforter, seemed particularly attractive. Then he sighed, stood up, and resolutely sank to the floor for his customary twenty-five push-ups, only to discover the full extent of the damage inflicted by yesterday’s sudden spurt of running. He lay flat on his stomach, trying to convince his calf muscles that they were not too tight to allow him to flex his feet and tuck his toes under. After a brief, painful struggle, he abandoned the push-ups, rolled over, and did twice his usual number of sit-ups to compensate.
He stared at the cracked white ceiling for five minutes, crawled over to the bed, reached for the phone, and brought it down to his level.
The way things were going, he didn’t want to ask Pete Collatos for any favors, even one as minor as the name of the appropriate officer to handle Mary’s potential arsonist. And mentioning the arsonist to Hurley as a casual aside was no longer an option if there was no reason to call Hurley about the Buick.
He dialed 911, police emergency. The high intermittent beep let him know he was being recorded from the moment the gruff-voiced cop answered on the second ring. He asked to be transferred from the Cambridge Police to the Boston Police, then made it quick.
He used the voice he’d adopted for the jailkeeper in a long ago run of Inherit the Wind at the Berkshire Theater Festival. It came to mind for the obvious reason: Jailkeepers reminded one of jail and jail was where he was headed if Menlo uncovered evidence of his late-night prowl around the reservoir. It also seemed a safe bet for nonrecognition. Less than two hundred people had seen the play, and not even the nastiest critic would recall the slightly Southern, high, breathy tones he’d taken such pains to perfect.
“That fire at 312 Commonwealth Avenue was set,” he said.
“Who is this? State your full name and address.”
“Do yourself a favor. Check out the insurance on that place.” Spraggue hung up, ignoring a second plea for his name. TV cops would already have had the call traced, a prowl car on the way to his front door. With the real-life Boston Police, the question was whether they’d even bother to check out the tip.
Hauling himself to his feet, leaving the phone on the floor, he tried to stretch the ache out of his muscles. No soap. He went downstairs, padding barefoot into the living room.
Spraggue’s apartment, the top two floors of a Fayerweather Street triple-decker, wasn’t exactly furnished. Its barren quality was a direct response to the finished perfection of the Chestnut Hill mansion. He’d bought the place on his return from England, for its proximity to Harvard, determined never to live in old Davison Spraggue’s museum again. That had been the easy part. Convincing Mary that she ought to remain in the family mausoleum had been the tricky half of the deal. She’d finally acquiesced when he’d threatened to donate his patrimony to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for use as a museum. All he’d taken from the house he’d grown up in was one chair, a brown suede monster comfortable enough to sleep in at a pinch, one Oriental rug, and two paintings.
At the time, he’d thought he would enjoy furnishing and decorating his own place. He still thought so. He never got around to it.
He’d bought a bed and stuck it at one end of the big sky-lit room that was intended as the third floor living room. He’d ordered plain white shades for the multitude of windows, but never gotten as far as curtains. The built-in chests of drawers in the closets seemed sufficient for storage. One of the appropriated artworks, a signed Picasso sketch, hung on a wall visible from the bed.
The remainder of the decor consisted mainly of plants, showered on him by Mary, watered sporadically. Their health, their glorious green profusion, made him suspect that Mrs. Wales, the lady who cleaned his apartment in exchange for a steep reduction in her first floor rent, augmented his haphazard care.
The old brown chair was the only item of furniture in the living room, unless you counted cushions. He’d bought a few pieces for the dining room at an auction: an old trestle table, eight ladderback chairs in need of recaning. The second painting hung in the dining room: a Van Gogh still life swirled in glorious golds and reds that made up for the room’s lack of window or fireplace.
He went into the kitchen to scramble eggs. No barren quality there. Two walls were entirely covered by pegboard, and the pegboard bristled with every conceivable cooking gadget invented, from garlic presses and egg slicers to meat mallets, pastry brushes, and wine pulls, from the very helpful to the ludicrous. Most were gifts. He owned six egg timers, ranging from serviceable to mildly cute to positively obscene. He never used egg timers.
He washed the eggs down with black coffee, the beans ground in one of three gift coffee grinders. He ground by handcrank this morning;
shuddering at the thought of the noisy sleek electric grinder.
He dialed Kathleen from the kitchen wall phone, scraping up bits of egg on the last crust of toast, chewing hastily as the phone rang. She snatched up the receiver as if she’d been waiting for the call. Once he identified himself, all the eagerness faded. She thought she might be coming down with a cold. She was absolutely exhausted. She would definitely be busy after tonight’s show. Possibly busy for the rest of her life.
Farrell didn’t take well to being stood up. It had probably never happened to her before. Getting semi-arrested didn’t seem a good enough excuse to her. Her tone intimated that he should have shot the man dead who threatened last night’s rendezvous. Spraggue wondered whether the judge at his murder trial would consider Menlo’s interference in his tryst with Kathleen grounds for justifiable homicide. That would depend on the judge’s age, he supposed. And his eyesight. And his memory.
He hung up, dressed, hobbled down to the car.
Sparhawk Street was a three-block section of faded elegance trapped between St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and Market Street in the Brighton section of Boston. For a politician, it was an unusual address; the transient-liberal-student enclave rarely managed to elect one of its own to City Council, much less the U.S. Senate. But Donagher, with his marathon-earned fame, had a name-recognition advantage that had outweighed the clannishness of North End Italians and Southie Irish when he first ran for city-wide office, that even now ignored town boundaries and made him as popular in the rural Berkshires as he was inside the Route 128 industrial belt.
The huge old homes were in various states of disrepair, making it impossible to guess whether the area was on the way up toward respectable gentrification or down toward seedy poverty. One staid colonial had the faded air of a rooming house. A pillared porch boasted a Greek-lettered banner: a college fraternity house. Noisy neighbors.
They weren’t very loud on a Saturday afternoon. Probably still asleep, hung over from the revels of Friday night. Spraggue sympathized; he felt a bit hung over himself, from the stale air of the police station, Mary’s wine, and the shattered expectations of the night. He didn’t feel like chatting with Collatos. He didn’t feel like analyzing crazed death threats.